Sweepsalting - sopsaltning

It's spring here in Gothenburg now. We think that we can safely say that winter will not return, until in October-November (touche du bois!). But before we lay this winter completely behind us we would like to talk a little about the combination of bike lanes and snow, because this year the City of Gothenburg tried something different for it.

For years the traditional way of reducing the numbers bike accidents in the winter was to spread massive amounts of gravel, crushed rock, over the bike lanes. The idea was that if you ride on ice or firmly packed snow your tires wouldn't get any grip, you would skid around, fall and break your bones. With the gravel spread over the ice and snow your tires would get grip. So did it work? Well... Yes. Kind of. Since the gravel consisted of millions of small sharp rocks you would get flat tires all the time, and hence not ride your bike so much. And as a consequence you wouldn't fall and break your legs. When the ice and snow had melted away this layer of gravel on top of the asphalt was also really uncomfortable to ride on. And the combination of a layer of gravel + asphalt, when your wheels start to skid... Brr! Because, ironically, that combination is about the most slippery bedding there is. Encountering that on a downhill slope is something we have nightmares about.

 

This is what it used to look like. (And, to be completely honest, this is what it still looks like on some bike lanes. These photos were taken in February this year...)

But this winter the city of Gothenburg has tried a new concept: Sopsaltning, which roughly translates to sweepsalting. The idea is that you spread salt on the bike lanes, so that when it snows the snow melts away, and you also brush the lanes with sweepers. You can read more about the concept here. So does it work? Well, yes.

 
(The text translates to "This you will like - Sweepsalting makes you not have to tumble". In Swedish it rhymes. Did we tell you about the Gothenburg humour?)

(On this photo you clearly see the pattern of salt.)

This is what one of the bike lanes looked like in January, and in February respectively. Actually these last two photos were taken on the same ride as the two first photos in this blog post. We are impressed with how well (some of!) the bike lanes were kept. So good work, City of Gothenburg!

Ride safe!